


The Scientist

by thisrhiannon



Category: Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic
Genre: Don't Read This, Exploring the really ffing weird servant/former enemy/boyfriend/BFF relationship these two kid have, Gen, I made a Coldplay reference, it's just prattle, this sucks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-28
Updated: 2015-12-28
Packaged: 2018-05-09 20:56:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5555054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisrhiannon/pseuds/thisrhiannon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Truly, this is something that I will never accept. To bind one's life by oath, to reason that the good of the world justifies the enslavement of a person to a cause..."</p><p>Ja'far closed his eyes and sank his teeth into his bottom lip. A life in chains, a knife held to flesh - Ja'far knew well of these things. He had seen the devastation that came of such oaths. He had been that devastation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Scientist

**Author's Note:**

> This is absolute bullshit.  
> Anyway, remember that episode where Hakuryu and Sinbad made an alliance? Hakuryu was going to take on the Kou empire and call upon Sin for aid eventually, and Sin was like, yeah, sounds good, I'm in. Let's just take on the most powerful force in the world together, woo hoo.
> 
> Yeah. Ja'far was not overly happy with that decision.

"Truly, this is something that I will never accept. To bind one's life by oath, to reason that the good of the world justifies the enslavement of a person to a cause..."

Ja'far closed his eyes and sank his teeth into his bottom lip. A life in chains, a knife held to flesh - Ja'far knew well of these things. He had seen the devastation that came of such oaths. He had been that devastation.

But he must not falter now. He was to be the shadow to Sin's light, one of the eight pillars upon which he built the temple of his glory. He must be strong. He must support Sin in every cause. Sin had, after all, never lead him astray.

And yet...

Ja'far arrived at Sin's quarters in his usual state of controlled calm. His chest still felt as though it was in a vice, but hell if he'd show it.

"The King is changing for dinner," supplied a guard helpfully. Ja'far nodded and did not speak. He knocked twice, then entered. The door closed behind him with a soft click.

Sin was faced away from him, his shirt and a half dozen metal vessels strewn on the floor. Under normal circumstances, Ja'far would have scurried to collect them, but tonight's circumstances were not normal.

Sin didn't need to turn around to know it was him. After spending twenty years with an assassin as his most faithful follower, he'd had to learn to perceive the imperceptible.

"What do you think," he said, holding two robes up to his cheeks, "purple or blue?"

"The blue brings out your eyes," said Ja'far. He meant, haven't you anything you'd like to tell me?

Sin grinned. "You think so? Maybe I'll wear it more often, then, since I know you like me in it." He meant, come now, don't be so cold. He meant, I know you like me best in nothing at all.

Ja'far let his voice drip with ice. "Though it clashes," he said, "with your hair."

Sin put on the purple and tossed aside the blue. He stooped to pick up a metal vessel near his toe and attempted to put it on his wrist. Fumbled with the clasp, failed again and again.

A test.

Ja'far did not step forward to help, and Sin knew he was angry. He raised his gaze to meet Ja'far's in the mirror over his armoire. Said nothing. Waited.

"Sin," Ja'far said. "You know that I would follow you anywhere."

"I do," said Sinbad. And he did.

"And you care about me?"

"I do, Ja'far." His head tilted, his brow furrowed, the picture of confusion and concern. "Has there ever been a question regarding that fact?"

Ja'far said nothing.

"Ja'far." Sin turned to face him. Saw how the light was slit by the angle at which the lamp on the wall was set, how Ja'far's eyes were cast in shadow. "You are my dearest friend, my most trusted confidant. I made you my first household member, my first general, my first advisor. I trusted you with the execution of my decisions, with the protection of my people. It is your handwriting in which the law of this nation is recorded. I have kept you by my side all of these years, and given you power such that a word from you could plunge this country into ruin. And you question that I care for you?"

"You find me to be useful."

"I did not always."

Like a knife plunged between Ja'far's ribs. He regretted those years when he had caused Sinbad so much heartache almost more than he regretted the wretched, blood-drenched years leading up to them. Moments like this reminded him that Sin knew exactly how to hurt him and how to put him back together - a most deadly combination.

"I followed you always." His voice shook, just slightly, a strand of hair stirred by a child's breath.

"I allowed you to. Even when I shouldn't have."

There again - the knife, the pain.

"I was a burden?"

"Never such that I did not want you near."

Yes - Sinbad was stronger, always stronger. He could have gotten rid of Ja'far if he had wished it. Ja'far knew this.

"You wanted me, then. Why?"

Sinbad knew he had won even before he spoke. A grin crept back into his voice. "Because I cared for you."

The conversation had gone full circle - exactly the direction their conversations always went, circles such that Ja'far could not turn things around. Such that Ja'far always came out wrong.

"So you cared for me." He had no choice but to allow Sinbad this.

"I did," said Sin. And he had.

"I have power now. You said so yourself. You could not rid yourself of me without harming that which you care about." Ja'far knew he'd already lost. Didn't care. "I am useful to you, so you cannot say that you keep me here because you care." He was being plain childish now, and he didn't care about that either.

"You are a far better man now than you ever were, Ja'far. If I had the capacity to love you then, of course I love you now."

He'd used the L-word. That was it. Here was where Ja'far always broke.

A moment of silence, the pregnant sort.

"I have followed you," he whispered, "to the best of my ability." And he had. "Always, I have followed you wherever you have gone. And you have loved me."

"Yes. I have." And he had.

"Then why do you lead me where I do not wish to go?"

Another pause.

Sinbad sighed, just slightly. "Why is it always so convoluted with you, Ja'far? It is as though you seek to manipulate me. Can we not be direct with one another, at least?"

Ja'far stared straight at him. "I learned from the best."

"I never sought to manipulate you."

"Your very existence manipulates me. Your charisma. Your virtue. Your strength."

"However do you keep up?" Sinbad smiled at him. 

"I don't." Ja'far raised a hand to the bridge of his nose, pinched between his eyes. "I've never been able to." And he hadn't.

"I knew when I allied with Hakuryu that it would bother you. I refused at first because it bothered me, too. but I have come to believe in him, Ja'far. The way that you believe in me, and I in you."

Sin knew. Of course Sin knew. Sin knew that Ja'far knew, but Ja'far had not known that Sin had known that he knew. This was entirely typical.

"It's nothing like that," snapped Ja'far. "Don't act as though it is." He hated Sin's ability to make light of his loyalty, his faith. Sinbad had been his world, always. Always, his very world.

"He may not have the power to succeed, but he can try. And that is all we have."

Ja'far resisted the urge to spit at his feet. "You have endangered this country on the grounds that a young child is able to /attempt/ to defeat an empire?"

"I have done it on the grounds of my faith in said child."

"You are a fool." Ja'far turned away from him, thoroughly disgusted. Already making plans to attack the first General he came across, blow off some steam.

"I am a fool with seven djinn and an entire nation to my name."

"A fool, Sinbad, who has sent a child into the lion's den."

"A fool who will pull him out again."

"A fool who will lose everything in the process." His voice rising steadily.

"A fool who refuses to sit back and do nothing while this lion prepares to attack of its own accord!"

Ja'far closed his eyes. "Hakuryu is a good boy. He deserves better than a lion's den to make his home."

Sinbad felt himself melt a little. Ja'far's ardent adoration of children was one of his loveliest attributes. "It was his decision, Ja'far."

"There is a reason children must not be left to make their own decisions."

"We did." Sinbad looked at him squarely.

"We were fools," murmered Ja'far. "Children - children are fools."

"We have faced the lion's den, Ja'far, you and I. We have made the same decision he has." Sinbad's voice never faulters. "You followed me in, and I carried you out." He smiled. "After all, I cared for you. I still do." And he did.

Ja'far thought he'd kill him.

Sin didn't see the danger - never did, always somehow came out on top - and continued. "And now, here we are. We have a nation. Riches. A whole people in our name."

"It is in your name."

"But you are here, too, Ja'far. I have given you power, for you have followed me. Always, you have followed."

"Hakuryu has no one to follow him," Ja'far argued. "He is alone in this impossible cause."

"Nonsense. Have you forgotten the point of this conversation? This is why you make a terrible diplomat," Sinbad said.

"Hakuryu has me," Sinbad said. "He has us."

The conversation had gone full circle, and Ja'far had lost.


End file.
